Page:Silver Shoal Light.djvu/125

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FISHASHKI
107

rock beside him. (Jim removed them later with kerosene.) "That is what I have done in these painting; I put, beside what I see, that which I do not see but feel." ("It's quite evident that he didn't see it," Jim said afterward, "but Heaven help him if he feels that way!")

"I will explain," said the Count. "These transcendent crimson I make for the land. A land aflame with patriotism, it should be red. The whole picture contains t'ree factors—water, sky, land; therefore all is represented in triangles. The long arcs of white are the flights of sea-birds—mental flight, leaving tangible effect on the atmosphere. That is how to do,—the Soul feels an effect which the eye, perhaps, do not witness; the hand transports it to a veesible form. I belong to no School; I can not express these thing in art as I can in music."

"Do you play, too?" Elspeth asked.

"The flute," said Stysalski. "Music is that, really, by which the Soul can escape."

"Yes," Joan said; "it's rather difficult to paint a feeling, I should imagine. Music's a more flexible medium."

"You play?"

"The piano, when I'm at home," Joan replied.